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How do I permanently disable random Google Photos popup to backup photos? (2024)

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Re: How do I permanently disable random Google Photos popup to backup photos? (2024)

#71

Post by wila »

gertop wrote: post #50
TekMol wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just tried that. Unfortunately, it seems to completely mess up the interface? I couldn't even see all photos anymore. Even though I do not use backup at all. So it is not possible that those photos are in the cloud or something.

Force close the app and clear the cache, your photos will come back. Or clear data completely, then open the app "for the first time" and immediately log out. It'll work, but as you've discovered, google made sure that it isn't the happy path. Also no search (not even by file name), no albums, some editing functions won't work (even though they're local), and a few more annoyances. but also no more backup prompt...

Is google lens still available? That's perhaps the only cloud feature I sometimes use, in order to translate Chinese text to English or similar.

Also is it possible to undo (in case there's something I don't like?) Is it just a matter of adding the app back to your account?

Re: How do I permanently disable random Google Photos popup to backup photos? (2024)

#72

Post by darkstar_16 »

darkwater wrote: post #35

And when you get at ~90% of space full is even worse! I stopped backing up photos to Google and use my local Immich instance (+ B2 remote backup) but I still haven't cleaned up the old ones from GPhotos/GDrive and it nags me in every possible way to buy more space!

How much data do you have ? Isn't B2 expensive at certain size ?

Re: How do I permanently disable random Google Photos popup to backup photos? (2024)

#73

Post by TekMol »

wila wrote: post #71
gertop wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Force close the app and clear the cache, your photos will come back. Or clear data completely, then open the app "for the first time" and immediately log out. It'll work, but as you've discovered, google made sure that it isn't the happy path. Also no search (not even by file name), no albums, some editing functions won't work (even though they're local), and a few more annoyances. but also no more backup prompt...

Is google lens still available? That's perhaps the only cloud feature I sometimes use, in order to translate Chinese text to English or similar. Also is it possible to undo (in case there's something I don't like?) Is it just a matter of adding the app back to your account?

I switched back and forth between "with account"/"without account" a few times now and it seems to work just fine. I stay with the no-account state, as it not only removes the nags, the interface is actually much cleaner and more logical

No idea about Lens, because I never used it. Aren't there webapps or web services for everything these days? I do everything that I do only occasionally via webapps. Barcode parsing for example.

Re: How do I permanently disable random Google Photos popup to backup photos? (2024)

#74

Post by close04 »

ozyschmozy wrote: post #56
a10c wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved my 565GB photo library to immich about a year ago and haven't looked back. Unfortunately, convincing my wife has been a bit harder, as she has real network effects of many shared albums across a large family (30+) that all aren't going to switch the immich app so they can join her album and sync the photos. Nonetheless, a positive move in the right direction!

What's your setup like? Do you host it on your own hardware or the cloud? Is it exposed to the internet? I have a homelab setup with my media server stuff and frigate (for security cameras), and they're only accessible via tailscale if I'm not at home. It would theoretically be easy enough to throw immich in there as well but I don't know how the app will behave when it can't reach the server half the time

> I don't know how the app will behave when it can't reach the server half the time

Immich has automatic URL switching, so it detects which network it's on and select between the internal and external URLs. When I'm not on my home WiFi it switches to the Tailscale URL. Tailscale must be connected for this to work obviously.

Re: How do I permanently disable random Google Photos popup to backup photos? (2024)

#75

Post by dugite-code »

theodric wrote: post #62
franciscop wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "and I do still use the google built in 'camera' app, so I'm kind of using google photos while I take pictures if that makes sense." I found it quite inconvenient; you'd try to open the photos app from the photos button on the camera but it didn't work for me. Did you find a way to make the integration decent?

The "solution" is to run a patched version of GCam that allows you to select a different gallery app, e.g. https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/google-camera/dev...

Or if you are using an alternative os you can use a fake google photos app.

It used to use your default gallery app, I see it as another anti-competitive choice on googles part

Re: How do I permanently disable random Google Photos popup to backup photos? (2024)

#76

Post by darkwater »

darkstar_16 wrote: post #72
darkwater wrote: post #35

And when you get at ~90% of space full is even worse! I stopped backing up photos to Google and use my local Immich instance (+ B2 remote backup) but I still haven't cleaned up the old ones from GPhotos/GDrive and it nags me in every possible way to buy more space!

How much data do you have ? Isn't B2 expensive at certain size ?

I have 850GB in B2 across all the backups I store there and I pay around 7$ a month. Any better price from any underdog provider? I'm definetely not going to pay 10EUR/month for Google One's 2TB.

I still need to check if I can optimize B2 costs by using different tiers (I mean, these are mainly disaster recovery backups so I dont care about fast copy times)

Re: How do I permanently disable random Google Photos popup to backup photos? (2024)

#77

Post by ura_yukimitsu »

ta8903 wrote: post #64

Use the website and block the popup with uBlock Origin. Using websites will always have better UX than apps, despite what devs will tell you, even on mobile devices.

Using the website means the photos are backed up in the cloud which is precisely what they don't want. And in the first place, you shouldn't have to use an ad blocker to turn off something that you should be able to turn off with a setting.

Also huge disagree on websites having better UX than native apps; it may be true more often on PC, and it may also be true on mobile for some apps that are particularly bad, but otherwise I observe the exact opposite of what you're saying.

Re: How do I permanently disable random Google Photos popup to backup photos? (2024)

#78

Post by jasode »

noduerme wrote: post #65
whynou2f wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eventually all those valuable pics they take will be lost if GP is disabled and phone is lost or screen damaged. And someone will complain - you can't even have sensible defaults. I understand you perhaps have hatred for google but hosting immich or ente is not for everyone. It is far easier for average Jose to pay for GP or some cloud. Unless you plan to setup at least some free cloud don't bother to lecture others

It's also not hard to just connect your phone to your laptop, copy your photos off every month or so, and clear the phone storage. I actually can't believe this isn't the normal way people do things. People pay to let Google keep copies of all their photos?! And I mean, setting up your own self-hosted storage for all your photos is neat and stuff, but seriously, seems like overkill. One folder a year on my laptop / b…

>connect your phone to your laptop, copy your photos off every month or so, and clear the phone storage. I actually can't believe this isn't the normal way people do things. People pay to let Google keep copies of all their photos?! And I mean, setting up your own self-hosted storage for all your photos is neat and stuff, but seriously, seems like overkill. One folder a year on my laptop / backup drive is sufficient for me.

Your suggested alternative of moving all photos to a laptop doesn't work for the people who prefer having all their photos accessible from their smartphone. That's the usable UI that the constant sync to cloud services gives them. The tradeoff is the cloud storage subsciption costs.

Also, transferring all photos to a laptop creates a single-point-of-failure if the laptop dies. Recovering photos becomes even more complicated when the internal SSD is encrypted with macOS File Vault or Windows BitLocker. Yes, photos in cloud storage isn't really a "true backup" in the 3-2-1 best practices sense but it's still more durable against catastrophic data loss than a single laptop.

The self-hosted Immich photo server is just one way to enable smartphone access to all photos and avoid paying for cloud storage. That's the reward for the "overkill" setup.

Re: How do I permanently disable random Google Photos popup to backup photos? (2024)

#79

Post by rjh29 »

whynou2f wrote: post #28
nom wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is worse than that. It fills up your accounts cloud storage, where your Google docs, sheets, drive files etc are stored. Once full you are caught in their trap: pay a monthly fee to the mafia or delete your data! This flow is intentional and they have set up everything to bring you there. The Photo-Backup popup (and arguably the whole photo feature) helps to shovel users more quickly to the end of the monetization…

Eventually all those valuable pics they take will be lost if GP is disabled and phone is lost or screen damaged. And someone will complain - you can't even have sensible defaults. I understand you perhaps have hatred for google but hosting immich or ente is not for everyone. It is far easier for average Jose to pay for GP or some cloud. Unless you plan to setup at least some free cloud don't bother to lecture others

I use Dropbox to sync my photos, I still have to tell google not to backup my photos probably 2-3 times a week.

Re: How do I permanently disable random Google Photos popup to backup photos? (2024)

#80

Post by MrMember »

gertop wrote: post #53
whynou2f wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eventually all those valuable pics they take will be lost if GP is disabled and phone is lost or screen damaged. And someone will complain - you can't even have sensible defaults. I understand you perhaps have hatred for google but hosting immich or ente is not for everyone. It is far easier for average Jose to pay for GP or some cloud. Unless you plan to setup at least some free cloud don't bother to lecture others

I hate Google and their dark patterns as much as the next guy but I agree: Having the pop-up once or twice or even three times is reasonable. A lot of people value the backup more than their privacy. But after saying no three times, it really ought to leave the user alone...

It's a ubiquitous dark pattern. Instead of having a "Yes" or "No" option it's now "Yes" or "Ask Me Later."
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